Sex positive political theory : pleasure, power, public policy and the pursuit of sexual liberation
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Liberal political theorists, most notably Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, often frame sexual liberties as negative liberties. Negative liberties are construed as freedoms from external interference. As it pertains to sexual freedoms, negative liberty holds that consenting adults should be free to do what they want with their sexual capacities as long as no one is harmed. This position lays an important foundation for the protection of sexual rights for those in LGBTQ+ communities and other sexually marginalized groups. Negative liberty is often contrasted with what Isaiah Berlin calls positive liberty, which emphasizes giving people the freedom to pursue certain ends free from internal constraints. From the perspective of political institutions, promoting positive liberty involves governments giving the opportunities and resources necessary to exercise certain freedoms. In this dissertation I argue that sexual freedom should be considered as both negative and positive liberties. In particular, I identify two cases where negative liberty is insufficient to guarantee the meaningful enjoyment of sexual freedoms: sexuality education for minors and sexual health for people with disabilities who are capable of sexual consent. I show that in both cases, political institutions should treat sex and sexuality in terms of both positive and negative liberty. I further develop a conception of sexual equality whereby all individuals are entitled to be treated as sexual beings whose consensual sexual preferences and identities are worthy of respect and affirmation.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Mintz, Kevin Todd |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Satz, Debra |
| Thesis advisor | Satz, Debra |
| Thesis advisor | McQueen, Alison (Alison E. J.) |
| Thesis advisor | Reich, Rob |
| Thesis advisor | Segura, Gary M, 1963- |
| Degree committee member | McQueen, Alison (Alison E. J.) |
| Degree committee member | Reich, Rob |
| Degree committee member | Segura, Gary M, 1963- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Kevin Todd Mintz. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Kevin Todd Mintz
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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